![Edwin Austin Abbey Cleopatra Sooth, la, I’ll Help Thus it must be Act IV, Scene IV, Antony and Cleopatra 1909](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Edwin_Austin_Abbey_Cleopatra_Sooth%2C_la%2C_I%E2%80%99ll_Help_Thus_it_must_be_Act_IV%2C_Scene_IV%2C_Antony_and_Cleopatra_1909.jpg)
''Antony and Cleopatra'' (
First Folio
''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...
title: ''The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra'') is a
tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
by
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. The play was first performed, by the
King's Men, at either the
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child acto ...
or the
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend, and gra ...
in around 1607;
its first appearance in print was in the
Folio
The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
of 1623.
The plot is based on
Thomas North
Sir Thomas North (28 May 1535c. 1604) was an English translator, military officer, lawyer, and justice of the peace. His translation into English of Plutarch's ''Parallel Lives'' is notable for being the main source text used by William Sha ...
's 1579 English translation of
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...
''
Lives
Lives may refer to:
* The plural form of a ''life''
* Lives, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran
* The number of lives in a video game
* '' Parallel Lives'', aka ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', a series of biographies of famous m ...
'' (in
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
) and follows the relationship between
Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...
and
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autoc ...
from the time of the
Sicilian revolt Sicilian revolt can refer to a number of military conflicts involving Sicily, including:
*First Servile War (135–132 BC) against Roman rule.
*Second Servile War (104-100 BC) against Roman rule.
*Sicilian Vespers (1282) against Angevin rule and the ...
to
Cleopatra's suicide during the
War of Actium
The War of Actium (32–30 BC) was the last civil war of the Roman Republic, fought between Mark Antony (assisted by Cleopatra and by extension Ptolemaic Egypt) and Octavian. In 32 BC, Octavian convinced the Roman Senate to declare war on the E ...
. The main antagonist is
Octavius Caesar
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
, one of Antony's fellow
triumvirs
A triumvirate ( la, triumvirātus) or a triarchy is a political institution ruled or dominated by three individuals, known as triumvirs ( la, triumviri). The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three leaders in a triumvirate are ...
of the
Second Triumvirate
The Second Triumvirate was an extraordinary commission and magistracy created for Mark Antony, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Octavian to give them practically absolute power. It was formally constituted by law on 27 November 43 BC with a ...
and the first emperor of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
. The tragedy is mainly set in the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...
and
Ptolemaic Egypt and is characterized by swift shifts in geographical location and linguistic register as it alternates between sensual, imaginative
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
and a more pragmatic, austere
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
.
Many consider Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom
Enobarbus describes as having "infinite variety", as one of the most complex and fully developed female characters in the playwright's body of work.
She is frequently vain and histrionic enough to provoke an audience almost to scorn; at the same time, Shakespeare invests her and Antony with tragic grandeur. These contradictory features have led to famously divided critical responses. It is difficult to classify ''Antony and Cleopatra'' as belonging to a single genre. It can be described as a
history play
History is one of the three main genres in Western theatre alongside tragedy and comedy, although it originated, in its modern form, thousands of years later than the other primary genres. For this reason, it is often treated as a subset of trage ...
(though it does not completely adhere to historical accounts), as a
tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
(though not completely in
Aristotelian terms), as a
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
, as a
romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
, and according to some critics, such as McCarter, a
problem play
The problem play is a form of drama that emerged during the 19th century as part of the wider movement of realism in the arts, especially following the innovations of Henrik Ibsen. It deals with contentious social issues through debates between th ...
. All that can be said with certainty is that it is a Roman play, and perhaps even a sequel to another of Shakespeare's tragedies, ''
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
''.
Characters
*
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autoc ...
– Roman general and one of the three joint leaders, or "triumvirs", who rule the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...
after the assassination of
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
in 44 B.C.
*
Octavius Caesar
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
– adopted son of
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
and future Emperor Augustus; another triumvir
*
Lepidus – another triumvir
*
Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...
– Queen of Egypt
*
Sextus Pompey
Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius ( 67 – 35 BC), also known in English as Sextus Pompey, was a Roman military leader who, throughout his life, upheld the cause of his father, Pompey the Great, against Julius Caesar and his supporters during the last ...
– rebel against the triumvirate and son of the late
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of ...
''Antony's party''
* Demetrius
* Philo
*
Domitius Enobarbus
*
Ventidius
Publius Ventidius ( 89–38 BC) was a Roman general and one of Julius Caesar's protégés. He won key victories against the Parthians which resulted in the deaths of key leaders – victories which redeemed the losses of Crassus and paved the w ...
* Silius – officer in Ventidius' army
* Eros
*
Canidius – Antony's lieutenant-general
*
Scarus
''Scarus'' is a genus of parrotfishes. With 52 currently recognised extant species,Froese, R. and D. Pauly, Eds''Scarus''.FishBase. 2013. it is by far the largest genus in this family. The vast majority are found at reefs in the Indo-Pacific, bu ...
* Dercetus
* Schoolmaster – Antony's ambassador to Octavius
* Rannius (non-speaking role)
* Lucilius (non-speaking role)
* Lamprius (non-speaking role)
''Octavius' party''
*
Octavia – Octavius' sister
*
Maecenas
Gaius Cilnius Maecenas ( – 8 BC) was a friend and political advisor to Octavian (who later reigned as emperor Augustus). He was also an important patron for the new generation of Augustan poets, including both Horace and Virgil. During the rei ...
*
Agrippa Agrippa may refer to:
People Antiquity
* Agrippa (mythology), semi-mythological king of Alba Longa
* Agrippa (astronomer), Greek astronomer from the late 1st century
* Agrippa the Skeptic, Skeptic philosopher at the end of the 1st century
* Agri ...
– admiral of the Roman navy
*
Taurus
Taurus is Latin for 'bull' and may refer to:
* Taurus (astrology), the astrological sign
* Taurus (constellation), one of the constellations of the zodiac
* Taurus (mythology), one of two Greek mythological characters named Taurus
* ''Bos taurus ...
– Octavius' lieutenant general
*
Dolabella
* Thidias
*
Gallus
* Proculeius
''Sextus' party''
* Menecrates
*
Menas – one of Sextus' naval leaders
* Varrius
''Cleopatra's party''
*
Charmian – maid of honour
* Iras – maid of honour
* Alexas
* Mardian – a
eunuch
A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function.
The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium ...
* Diomedes – treasurer
* Seleucus – attendant
''Other''
* Soothsayer
* Clown
* Boy
* Sentry
* Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants
Synopsis
![Cleopatra - John William Waterhouse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Cleopatra_-_John_William_Waterhouse.jpg)
Mark Antony—one of the triumvirs of the Roman Republic, along with Octavius and Lepidus—has neglected his soldierly duties after being beguiled by Egypt's Queen, Cleopatra. He ignores Rome's domestic problems, including the fact that his third wife
Fulvia
Fulvia (; c. 83 BC – 40 BC) was an aristocratic Roman woman who lived during the Late Roman Republic. Fulvia's birth into an important political dynasty facilitated her relationships and, later on, marriages to Publius Clodius Pulcher, Gai ...
rebelled against Octavius and then died.
Octavius calls Antony back to Rome from Alexandria to help him fight against Sextus Pompey, Menecrates, and Menas, three notorious pirates of the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
. At Alexandria, Cleopatra begs Antony not to go, and though he repeatedly affirms his deep passionate love for her, he eventually leaves.
The triumvirs meet in Rome, where Antony and Octavius put to rest, for now, their disagreements. Octavius' general, Agrippa, suggests that Antony should marry Octavius's sister, Octavia, in order to cement the friendly bond between the two men. Antony accepts. Antony's lieutenant Enobarbus, though, knows that Octavia can never satisfy him after Cleopatra. In a famous passage, he describes Cleopatra's charms: "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety: other women cloy / The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies."
A soothsayer warns Antony that he is sure to lose if he ever tries to fight Octavius.
In Egypt, Cleopatra learns of Antony's marriage to Octavia and takes furious revenge upon the messenger who brings her the news. She grows content only when her courtiers assure her that Octavia is homely: short, low-browed, round-faced and with bad hair.
Before battle, the triumvirs parley with Sextus Pompey, and offer him a truce. He can retain
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
and
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
, but he must help them "rid the sea of pirates" and send them tributes. After some hesitation, Sextus agrees. They engage in a drunken celebration on Sextus' galley, though the austere Octavius leaves early and sober from the party. Menas suggests to Sextus that he kill the three triumvirs and make himself ruler of the Roman Republic, but he refuses, finding it dishonourable. After Antony departs Rome for Athens, Octavius and Lepidus break their truce with Sextus and war against him. This is unapproved by Antony, and he is furious.
Antony returns to
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
and crowns Cleopatra and himself as rulers of Egypt and the eastern third of the Roman Republic (which was Antony's share as one of the triumvirs). He accuses Octavius of not giving him his fair share of Sextus' lands, and is angry that Lepidus, whom Octavius has imprisoned, is out of the triumvirate. Octavius agrees to the former demand, but otherwise is very displeased with what Antony has done.
![Castro Battle of Actium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Castro_Battle_of_Actium.jpg)
Antony prepares to battle Octavius. Enobarbus urges Antony to fight on land, where he has the advantage, instead of by sea, where the navy of Octavius is lighter, more mobile and better manned. Antony refuses, since Octavius has dared him to fight at sea. Cleopatra pledges her fleet to aid Antony. However, during the
Battle of Actium
The Battle of Actium was a naval battle fought between a maritime fleet of Octavian led by Marcus Agrippa and the combined fleets of both Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII Philopator. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC in the Ionian Sea, nea ...
off the western coast of Greece, Cleopatra flees with her sixty ships, and Antony follows her, leaving his forces to ruin. Ashamed of what he has done for the love of Cleopatra, Antony reproaches her for making him a coward, but also sets this true and deep love above all else, saying "Give me a kiss; even this repays me."
Octavius sends a messenger to ask Cleopatra to give up Antony and come over to his side. She hesitates, and flirts with the messenger, when Antony walks in and angrily denounces her behavior. He sends the messenger to be whipped. Eventually, he forgives Cleopatra and pledges to fight another battle for her, this time on land.
On the eve of the battle, Antony's soldiers hear strange portents, which they interpret as the god
Hercules
Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the Gr ...
abandoning his protection of Antony. Furthermore, Enobarbus, Antony's long-serving lieutenant, deserts him and goes over to Octavius' side. Rather than confiscating Enobarbus' goods, which Enobarbus did not take with him when he fled, Antony orders them to be sent to Enobarbus. Enobarbus is so overwhelmed by Antony's generosity, and so ashamed of his own disloyalty, that he dies from a broken heart.
Antony loses the battle as his troops desert en masse and he denounces Cleopatra: "This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me." He resolves to kill her for the imagined treachery. Cleopatra decides that the only way to win back Antony's love is to send him word that she killed herself, dying with his name on her lips. She locks herself in her monument, and awaits Antony's return.
Her plan backfires: rather than rushing back in remorse to see the "dead" Cleopatra, Antony decides that his own life is no longer worth living. He begs one of his aides, Eros, to run him through with a sword, but Eros cannot bear to do it and kills himself. Antony admires Eros' courage and attempts to do the same, but only succeeds in wounding himself. In great pain, he learns that Cleopatra is indeed alive. He is hoisted up to her in her monument and dies in her arms.
![Eugène Delacroix - Cleopatra and the Peasant - WGA06196](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_Cleopatra_and_the_Peasant_-_WGA06196.jpg)
Since Egypt has been defeated, the captive Cleopatra is placed under a guard of Roman soldiers. She tries to take her own life with a dagger, but Proculeius disarms her. Octavius arrives, assuring her she will be treated with honour and dignity. But Dolabella secretly warns her that Octavius intends to parade her at his
Roman triumph
The Roman triumph (') was a civil religion, civil ceremony and Religion in ancient Rome, religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the success of a military commander who had led Roman forces to victory in the servi ...
. Cleopatra bitterly envisions the endless humiliations awaiting her for the rest of her life as a Roman conquest.
Cleopatra kills herself using the
venomous
Venom or zootoxin is a type of toxin produced by an animal that is actively delivered through a wound by means of a bite, sting, or similar action. The toxin is delivered through a specially evolved ''venom apparatus'', such as fangs or a sti ...
bite
Biting is a common zoological behavior involving the active, rapid closing of the jaw around an object. This behavior is found in toothed animals such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish, but can also exist in arthropods. Myocytic con ...
of an
asp, imagining how she will meet Antony again in the afterlife. Her serving maids Iras and Charmian also die, Iras from heartbreak and Charmian from one of the two asps in Cleopatra's basket. Octavius discovers the dead bodies and experiences conflicting emotions. Antony and Cleopatra's deaths leave him free to become the first
Roman Emperor, but he also feels some sympathy for them. He orders a public military funeral.
Sources
The principal source for the story is an English translation of a French translation of Plutarch's "Life of Mark Antony", from the ''
Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Compared Together''. This translation, by
Sir Thomas North
Sir Thomas North (28 May 1535c. 1604) was an English translator, military officer, lawyer, and justice of the peace. His translation into English of Plutarch's '' Parallel Lives'' is notable for being the main source text used by William Sh ...
, was first published in 1579. Many phrases in Shakespeare's play are taken directly from North, including Enobarbus' famous description of Cleopatra and her barge:
I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue—
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.
This may be compared with North's text:
However, Shakespeare also adds scenes, including many portraying Cleopatra's domestic life, and the role of Enobarbus is greatly developed. Historical facts are also changed: in Plutarch, Antony's final defeat was many weeks after the Battle of Actium, and Octavia lived with Antony for several years and bore him two children:
Antonia Major
Antonia the Elder. (born August/September 39 BC) was a niece of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, being the eldest daughter of Octavia the Younger and her second husband, the Triumvir Mark Antony. She married Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and be ...
, paternal grandmother of the Emperor
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...
and maternal grandmother of the Empress
Valeria Messalina
Valeria Messalina (; ) was the third wife of Roman emperor Claudius. She was a paternal cousin of Emperor Nero, a second cousin of Emperor Caligula, and a great-grandniece of Emperor Augustus. A powerful and influential woman with a reputation ...
, and
Antonia Minor
Antonia Minor (31 January 36 BC - 1 May 37 AD) was the younger of two surviving daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor. She was a niece of the Emperor Augustus, sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the Emperor Calig ...
, the sister-in-law of the Emperor
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
, mother of the Emperor
Claudius
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusu ...
, and paternal grandmother of the Emperor
Caligula
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germanicu ...
and Empress
Agrippina the Younger
Julia Agrippina (6 November AD 15 – 23 March AD 59), also referred to as Agrippina the Younger, was Roman empress from 49 to 54 AD, the fourth wife and niece of Emperor Claudius.
Agrippina was one of the most prominent women in the Julio-Claud ...
.
Date and text
![First Folio, Shakespeare - 0847](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/First_Folio%2C_Shakespeare_-_0847.jpg)
Many scholars believe Shakespeare's play was written in 1606–07, although some researchers have argued for an earlier dating, around 1603–04. ''Antony and Cleopatra'' was entered in the
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including print ...
(an early form of
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
for printed works) in May 1608, but it does not seem to have been actually printed until the publication of the First Folio in 1623. The Folio is therefore the only authoritative text today. Some scholars speculate that it derives from Shakespeare's own draft, or "foul papers", since it contains minor errors in speech labels and stage directions that are thought to be characteristic of the author in the process of composition.
Modern editions divide the play into a conventional five-act structure but, as in most of his earlier plays, Shakespeare did not create these act divisions. His play is articulated in forty separate "scenes", more than he used for any other play. Even the word "scenes" may be inappropriate as a description, as the scene changes are often very fluid, almost
montage
Montage may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Filmmaking and films
* Montage (filmmaking), a technique in film editing
* ''Montage'' (2013 film), a South Korean film
Music
* Montage (music), or sound collage
* ''Montage'' (Block B EP), 201 ...
-like. The large number of scenes is necessary because the action frequently switches between Alexandria, Italy,
Messina
Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...
in Sicily, Syria,
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, and other parts of Egypt and the Roman Republic. The play contains thirty-four speaking characters, fairly typical for a Shakespeare play on such an epic scale.
Analysis and criticism
Classical allusions and analogues: Dido and Aeneas from Virgil's ''Aeneid''
Many critics have noted the strong influence of
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
's first-century Roman epic poem, the ''
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...
'', on Shakespeare's ''Antony and Cleopatra''. Such influence should be expected, given the prevalence of allusions to Virgil in the Renaissance culture in which Shakespeare was educated. The historical Antony and Cleopatra were the prototypes and antitypes for Virgil's Dido and Aeneas:
Dido
Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC.
In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...
, ruler of the north African city of
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
, tempts
Aeneas
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...
, the legendary exemplar of Roman ''
pietas
''Pietas'' (), translated variously as "duty", "religiosity" or "religious behavior", "loyalty", "devotion", or "filial piety" (English "piety" derives from the Latin), was one of the chief virtues among the ancient Romans. It was the distingui ...
'', to forego his task of founding Rome after the fall of
Troy
Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in prese ...
. The fictional Aeneas dutifully resists Dido's temptation and abandons her to forge on to Italy, placing political destiny before romantic love, in stark contrast to Antony, who puts passionate love of his own Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, before duty to Rome. Given the well-established traditional connections between the fictional Dido and Aeneas and the historical Antony and Cleopatra, it is no surprise that Shakespeare includes numerous allusions to Virgil's epic in his historical tragedy. As
Janet Adelman observes, "almost all the central elements in ''Antony and Cleopatra'' are to be found in the ''Aeneid'': the opposing values of Rome and a foreign passion; the political necessity of a passionless Roman marriage; the concept of an afterlife in which the passionate lovers meet." However, as Heather James argues, Shakespeare's allusions to Virgil's Dido and Aeneas are far from slavish imitations. James emphasizes the various ways in which Shakespeare's play subverts the ideology of the Virgilian tradition; one such instance of this subversion is Cleopatra's dream of Antony in Act 5 ("I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony"
.2.75. James argues that in her extended description of this dream, Cleopatra "reconstructs the heroic masculinity of an Antony whose identity has been fragmented and scattered by Roman opinion." This politically charged dream vision is just one example of the way that Shakespeare's story destabilises and potentially critiques the Roman ideology inherited from Virgil's epic and embodied in the mythic Roman ancestor Aeneas.
Critical history: changing views of Cleopatra
![Venus_and_Cupid_from_the_House_of_Marcus_Fabius_Rufus_at_Pompeii,_most_likely_a_depiction_of_Cleopatra_VII (2)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Venus_and_Cupid_from_the_House_of_Marcus_Fabius_Rufus_at_Pompeii%2C_most_likely_a_depiction_of_Cleopatra_VII_%282%29.jpg)
Cleopatra, being the complex figure that she is, has faced a variety of interpretations of character throughout history. Perhaps the most famous dichotomy is that of the manipulative seductress versus the skilled leader. Examining the critical history of the character of Cleopatra reveals that intellectuals of the 19th century and the early 20th century viewed her as merely an object of sexuality that could be understood and diminished rather than an imposing force with great poise and capacity for leadership.
This phenomenon is illustrated by the famous poet
T. S. Eliot's take on Cleopatra. He saw her as "no wielder of power", but rather that her "devouring sexuality...diminishes her power".
His language and writings use images of darkness, desire, beauty, sensuality, and carnality to portray not a strong, powerful woman, but a temptress. Throughout his writing on Antony and Cleopatra, Eliot refers to Cleopatra as material rather than person. He frequently calls her "thing". Eliot conveys the view of early critical history on the character of Cleopatra.
Other scholars also discuss early critics' views of Cleopatra in relation to a serpent signifying "
original sin
Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 (t ...
".
The symbol of the serpent "functions, at the symbolic level, as a means of her submission, the phallic appropriation of the queen's body (and the land it embodies) by Octavius and the empire".
The serpent, because it represents temptation, sin, and feminine weakness, is used by 19th and early 20th century critics to undermine Cleopatra's political authority and to emphasise the image of Cleopatra as manipulative seductress.
The
postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
view of Cleopatra is complex. Doris Adler suggests that, in a postmodern philosophical sense, we cannot begin to grasp the character of Cleopatra because, "In a sense it is a distortion to consider Cleopatra at any moment apart from the entire cultural milieu that creates and consumes Antony and Cleopatra on stage. However the isolation and microscopic examination of a single aspect apart from its host environment is an effort to improve the understanding of the broader context. In similar fashion, the isolation and examination of the stage image of Cleopatra becomes an attempt to improve the understanding of the theatrical power of her infinite variety and the cultural treatment of that power."
So, as a microcosm, Cleopatra can be understood within a postmodern context, as long as one understands that the purpose for the examination of this microcosm is to further one's own interpretation of the work as a whole. Author L.T. Fitz believes that it is not possible to derive a clear, postmodern view of Cleopatra due to the sexism that all critics bring with them when they review her intricate character. She states specifically, "Almost all critical approaches to this play have been coloured by the sexist assumptions the critics have brought with them to their reading."
One seemingly anti-sexist viewpoint comes from Donald C. Freeman's articulations of the meaning and significance of the deaths of both Antony and Cleopatra at the end of the play. Freeman states, "We understand Antony as a grand failure because the container of his Romanness "
dislimns": it can no longer outline and define him even to himself. Conversely, we understand Cleopatra at her death as the transcendent queen of "immortal longings" because the container of her mortality can no longer restrain her: unlike Antony, she never melts, but sublimates from her very earthly flesh to ethereal fire and air."
These constant shifts in the perception of Cleopatra are well-represented in a review of
Estelle Parsons
Estelle Margaret Parsons (born November 20, 1927) is an American actress, singer and stage director.
After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program ''Today'' and ...
' adaptation of Shakespeare's ''Antony and Cleopatra'' at the Interart Theatre in New York City. Arthur Holmberg surmises, "What had at first seemed like a desperate attempt to be chic in a trendy New York manner was, in fact, an ingenious way to characterise the differences between Antony's Rome and Cleopatra's Egypt. Most productions rely on rather predictable contrasts in costuming to imply the rigid discipline of the former and the languid self-indulgence of the latter. By exploiting ethnic differences in speech, gesture, and movement, Parsons rendered the clash between two opposing cultures not only contemporary but also poignant. In this setting, the white Egyptians represented a graceful and ancient aristocracy—well groomed, elegantly poised, and doomed. The Romans, upstarts from the West, lacked finesse and polish. But by sheer brute strength they would hold dominion over principalities and kingdoms."
This assessment of the changing way in which Cleopatra is represented in modern adaptations of Shakespeare's play is yet another example of how the modern and postmodern view of Cleopatra is constantly evolving.
Cleopatra is a difficult character to pin down because there are multiple aspects of her personality of which we occasionally get a glimpse. However, the most dominant parts of her character seem to oscillate between a powerful ruler, a seductress, and a heroine of sorts. Power is one of Cleopatra's most dominant character traits and she uses it as a means of control. This thirst for control manifested itself through Cleopatra's initial seduction of Antony in which she was dressed as Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and made quite a calculated entrance in order to capture his attention. This sexualised act extends itself into Cleopatra's role as a seductress because it was her courage and unapologetic manner that leaves people remembering her as a "grasping, licentious harlot".
["Lustful Seductress". Wfu. Web] However, despite her "insatiable sexual passion" she was still using these relationships as part of a grander political scheme, once again revealing how dominant Cleopatra's desire was for power.
Due to Cleopatra's close relationship with power, she seems to take on the role of a heroine because there is something in her passion and intelligence that intrigues others. She was an autonomous and confident ruler, sending a powerful message about the independence and strength of women. Cleopatra had quite a wide influence, and still continues to inspire, making her a heroine to many.
Cleopatra's race
Theatrical portrayals of Cleopatra in Shakespeare and beyond have a complicated history. In the Pelican edition of ''Antony and Cleopatra'', Professor Albert R. Braunmuller discusses how, in the play she is insulted
by Philo by being called a "gypsy" which is a derivative of the word "Egyptian" but also but also evokes imagery of "Romany people, dark-haired, dark-skinned" which would be in line with a much more racialized version of Cleopatra.
The other notable insult used towards Cleopatra in the play is when Philo calls her "tawny". Braunmuller notes that "tawny" is "hard to define historically" but that it "seems to have meant some brownish color, and Shakespeare elsewhere uses it to describe suntanned or sunburnt skin, which Elizabethan Canons of beauty regarded as undesirable."
Braunmuller contextualizes all of this by reminding modern audiences that viewers and writers during Shakespeare's time would have had more complicated perspectives on race, ethnicity and related subjects and that their viewpoints were "extremely hard to define"
There were also precursors to Shakespeare's ''Antony and Cleopatra'' that portrayed Cleopatra as having "Macedonian-Greek descent.
Pascale Aebischer's analysis of race in Shakespeare's ''Antony and Cleopatra'' further discussing the historically and culturally ambiguous nature of Cleopatra's race. The paper enters into and gives context to the existing academic conversation surrounding the racial identity of Shakespeare's Cleopatra. Aebischer reviews the historical portrayals leading up to and including Shakespeare's portrayal of Cleopatra and uses them to analyze the opposing analyses of Cleopatra as either black or white and also to look at how race even functioned during the time period that plays like this were being written. She concludes that portrayals of Cleopatra have been historically complicated and varied widely. Although, factually, she was of European ethnic origin, her racial identity on stage becomes intertwined with the cultural and social identity she is portraying in a way that makes determining her precise racial identity difficult. Aebischer points to scholars like 'Linda Charnes
hocannily observe, "descriptions of Cleopatra in
hakespeare'splay are never more than descriptions of the effect she has on the onlooker"'. Aebischer eventually concludes that "we must accept that Shakespeare's Cleopatra is neither black nor white, but that should not stop us from appreciating the political significance of casting choices, nor should it fool us into thinking that, for a character like Cleopatra, any casting choice will ever be 'colourblind.'" Within the context of theatrical portrayals of Cleopatra, Aebischer asserts that "racial attributes are not properties that are embodied, but theatrical properties to be deployed and discarded at will."
Structure: Egypt and Rome
![Cleopatra greets Antony](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Cleopatra_greets_Antony.jpg)
The relationship between Egypt and Rome in ''Antony and Cleopatra'' is central to understanding the plot, as the dichotomy allows the reader to gain more insight into the characters, their relationships, and the ongoing events that occur throughout the play. Shakespeare emphasises the differences between the two nations with his use of language and literary devices, which also highlight the different characterizations of the two countries by their own inhabitants and visitors. Literary critics have also spent many years developing arguments concerning the "masculinity" of Rome and the Romans and the "femininity" of Egypt and the Egyptians. In traditional criticism of ''Antony and Cleopatra'', "Rome has been characterised as a male world, presided over by the austere Caesar, and Egypt as a female domain, embodied by a Cleopatra who is seen to be as abundant, leaky, and changeable as the Nile".
In such a reading, male and female, Rome and Egypt, reason and emotion, and austerity and leisure are treated as mutually exclusive binaries that all interrelate with one another. The straightforwardness of the binary between male Rome and female Egypt has been challenged in later 20th-century criticism of the play: "In the wake of feminist, poststructuralist, and cultural-materialist critiques of gender essentialism, most modern Shakespeare scholars are inclined to be far more skeptical about claims that Shakespeare possessed a unique insight into a timeless 'femininity'."
As a result, critics have been much more likely in recent years to describe Cleopatra as a character that confuses or deconstructs gender than as a character that embodies the feminine.
Literary devices used to convey the differences between Rome and Egypt
In ''Antony and Cleopatra'', Shakespeare uses several literary techniques to convey a deeper meaning about the differences between Rome and Egypt. One example of this is his schema of the container as suggested by critic Donald Freeman in his article, "The rack dislimns." In his article, Freeman suggests that the container is representative of the body and the overall theme of the play that "knowing is seeing."
In literary terms a schema refers to a plan throughout the work, which means that Shakespeare had a set path for unveiling the meaning of the "container" to the audience within the play. An example of the body in reference to the container can be seen in the following passage:
Nay, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure ...
His captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gypsy's lust. (1.1.1–2, 6–10)
The lack of tolerance exerted by the hard-edged Roman military code allots to a general's dalliance is metaphorised as a container, a measuring cup that cannot hold the liquid of Antony's grand passion.
Later we also see Antony's heart-container swells again because it "o'erflows the measure." For Antony, the container of the Rome-world is confining and a "measure", while the container of the Egypt-world is liberating, an ample domain where he can explore.
The contrast between the two is expressed in two of the play's famous speeches:
Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space!
Kingdoms are clay!
(1.1.34–36)
For Rome to "melt is for it to lose its defining shape, the boundary that contains its civic and military codes.
This schema is important in understanding Antony's grand failure because the Roman container can no longer outline or define him—even to himself. Conversely we come to understand Cleopatra in that the container of her mortality can no longer restrain her. Unlike Antony whose container melts, she gains a sublimity being released into the air.
In her article "Roman World, Egyptian Earth", critic Mary Thomas Crane introduces another symbol throughout the play: The
four elements
Classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Tibet, and India had simi ...
. In general, characters associated with Egypt perceive their world composed of the Aristotelian elements, which are earth, wind, fire and water. For
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
these physical elements were the centre of the universe and appropriately Cleopatra heralds her coming death when she proclaims, "I am fire and air; my other elements/I give to baser life", (5.2.289–290).
Romans, on the other hand, seem to have left behind that system, replacing it with a subjectivity separated from and overlooking the natural world and imagining itself as able to control it. These differing systems of thought and perception result in very different versions of nation and empire. Shakespeare's relatively positive representation of Egypt has sometimes been read as nostalgia for an heroic past. Because the
Aristotelian elements were a declining theory in Shakespeare's time, it can also be read as nostalgia for a waning theory of the material world, the pre-seventeenth-century cosmos of elements and
humours
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...
that rendered subject and world deeply interconnected and saturated with meaning.
Thus this reflects the difference between the Egyptians who are interconnected with the elemental earth and the Romans in their dominating the hard-surfaced, impervious world.
Critics also suggest that the political attitudes of the main characters are an
allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
for the political atmosphere of Shakespeare's time. According to Paul Lawrence Rose in his article "The Politics of ''Antony and Cleopatra''", the views expressed in the play of "national solidarity, social order and strong rule"
were familiar after the
absolute monarchies
Absolute monarchy (or Absolutism as a doctrine) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch rules in their own right or power. In an absolute monarchy, the king or queen is by no means limited and has absolute power, though a limited constitut ...
of
Henry VII and
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
and the political disaster involving
Mary Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scot ...
. Essentially the political themes throughout the play are reflective of the different models of rule during Shakespeare's time. The political attitudes of Antony, Caesar, and Cleopatra are all basic archetypes for the conflicting sixteenth-century views of kingship.
Caesar is representative of the ideal king, who brings about the
Pax Romana
The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is periodization, identified as a period and as a golden age (metaphor), golden age of increased as well as sustained Imperial cult of ancient Rome ...
similar to the political peace established under
the Tudors
''The Tudors'' is a historical fiction television series set primarily in 16th-century England, created and written by Michael Hirst and produced for the American premium cable television channel Showtime. The series was a collaboration among ...
. His cold demeanour is representative of what the sixteenth century thought to be a side-effect of political genius
Conversely, Antony's focus is on valour and
chivalry
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christianity, Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours we ...
, and Antony views the political power of victory as a by-product of both. Cleopatra's power has been described as "naked, hereditary, and despotic",
and it is argued that she is reminiscent of
Mary Tudor's reign—implying it is not coincidence that she brings about the "doom of Egypt." This is in part due to an emotional comparison in their rule. Cleopatra, who was emotionally invested in Antony, brought about the downfall of Egypt in her commitment to love, whereas Mary Tudor's emotional attachment to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
fates her rule. The political implications within the play reflect on Shakespeare's England in its message that Impact is not a match for Reason.
The characterization of Rome and Egypt
Critics have often used the opposition between Rome and Egypt in ''Antony and Cleopatra'' to set forth defining characteristics of the various characters. While some characters are distinctly Egyptian, others are distinctly Roman, some are torn between the two, and still others attempt to remain neutral.
Critic James Hirsh has stated that, "as a result, the play dramatises not two but four main figurative locales: Rome as it is perceived from a Roman point of view; Rome as it is perceived from an Egyptian point of view; Egypt as it is perceived form a Roman point of view; and Egypt as it is perceived from an Egyptian point of view."
= Rome from the Roman perspective
=
According to Hirsh, Rome largely defines itself by its opposition to Egypt.
Where Rome is viewed as structured, moral, mature, and essentially masculine, Egypt is the polar opposite; chaotic, immoral, immature, and feminine. In fact, even the distinction between masculine and feminine is a purely Roman idea which the Egyptians largely ignore. The Romans view the "world" as nothing more than something for them to conquer and control. They believe they are "impervious to environmental influence"
and that they are not to be influenced and controlled by the world but vice versa.
= Rome from the Egyptian perspective
=
The Egyptians view the Romans as boring, oppressive, strict and lacking in passion and creativity, preferring strict rules and regulations.
= Egypt from the Egyptian perspective
=
The Egyptian World view reflects what Mary Floyd-Wilson has called geo-humoralism, or the belief that climate and other environmental factors shapes racial character. The Egyptians view themselves as deeply entwined with the natural "earth". Egypt is not a location for them to rule over, but an inextricable part of them. Cleopatra envisions herself as the embodiment of Egypt because she has been nurtured and moulded by the environment
fed by "the dung, / the beggar's nurse and Caesar's" (5.2.7–8). They view life as more fluid and less structured allowing for creativity and passionate pursuits.
= Egypt from the Roman perspective
=
The Romans view the Egyptians essentially as improper. Their passion for life is continuously viewed as irresponsible, indulgent, over-sexualised and disorderly.
The Romans view Egypt as a distraction that can send even the best men off course. This is demonstrated in the following passage describing Antony.
Boys who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
And so rebel judgment.
(1.4.31–33)
Ultimately the dichotomy between Rome and Egypt is used to distinguish two sets of conflicting values between two different locales. Yet, it goes beyond this division to show the conflicting sets of values not only between two cultures but within cultures, even within individuals.
As John Gillies has argued "the 'orientalism' of Cleopatra's court—with its luxury, decadence, splendour, sensuality, appetite, effeminacy and eunuchs—seems a systematic inversion of the legendary Roman values of temperance, manliness, courage". While some characters fall completely into the category of Roman or Egyptian (Octavius as Roman, Cleopatra Egyptian) others, such as Antony, cannot chose between the two conflicting locales and cultures. Instead he oscillates between the two. In the beginning of the play Cleopatra calls attention to this saying
He was dispos'd to mirth, but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath strook him.
(1.2.82–83)
This shows Antony's willingness to embrace the pleasures of Egyptian life, yet his tendency to still be drawn back into Roman thoughts and ideas.
Orientalism plays a very specific, and yet, nuanced role in the story of Antony and Cleopatra. A more specific term comes to mind, from Richmond Barbour, that of proto-orientalism, that is orientalism before the age of imperialism. This puts Antony and Cleopatra in an interesting period of time, one that existed before the West knew much about what would eventually be called the Orient, but still a time where it was known that there were lands beyond Europe. This allowed Shakespeare to use widespread assumptions about the "exotic" east with little academic recourse. It could be said that Antony and Cleopatra and their relationship represent the first meeting of the two cultures in a literary sense, and that this relationship would lay the foundation for the idea of Western superiority vs. Eastern inferiority. The case could also be made that at least in a literary sense, the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra was some people's first exposure to an inter-racial relationship, and in a major way. This plays into the idea that Cleopatra has been made out to be an "other", with terms used to describe her like "gypsy".
And it is this otherization that is at the heart of the piece itself, the idea that Antony, a man of Western origin and upbringing has coupled himself with the Eastern women, the stereotypical "other".
Evolving views of critics regarding gender characterizations
![011-Mark Antony, with Cleopatra VII -3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/011-Mark_Antony%2C_with_Cleopatra_VII_-3.jpg)
Feminist criticism of ''Antony and Cleopatra'' has provided a more in-depth reading of the play, has challenged previous norms for criticism, and has opened a larger discussion of the characterization of Egypt and Rome. However, as Gayle Greene so aptly recognises, it must be addressed that "feminist criticism
f Shakespeareis nearly as concerned with the biases of Shakespeare's interpretors —critics, directors, editors—as with Shakespeare himself."
Feminist scholars, in respect to ''Antony and Cleopatra'', often examine Shakespeare's use of language when describing Rome and Egypt. Through his language, such scholars argue, he tends to characterise Rome as "masculine" and Egypt as "feminine." According to Gayle Greene, "the 'feminine' world of love and personal relationships is secondary to the 'masculine' world of war and politics,
ndhas kept us from realizing that Cleopatra is the play's protagonist, and so skewed our perceptions of character, theme, and structure."
The highlighting of these starkly contrasting qualities of the two backdrops of ''Antony and Cleopatra'', in both Shakespeare's language and the words of critics, brings attention to the characterization of the title characters, since their respective countries are meant to represent and emphasise their attributes.
The feminine categorization of Egypt, and subsequently Cleopatra, was negatively portrayed throughout early criticism. The story of ''Antony and Cleopatra'' was often summarised as either "the fall of a great general, betrayed in his dotage by a treacherous strumpet, or else it can be viewed as a celebration of transcendental love."
In both reduced summaries, Egypt and Cleopatra are presented as either the destruction of Antony's masculinity and greatness or as agents in a love story. Once the Women's Liberation Movement grew between the 1960s and 1980s, however, critics began to take a closer look at both Shakespeare's characterization of Egypt and Cleopatra and the work and opinions of other critics on the same matter.
Jonathan Gil Harris claims that the Egypt vs. Rome dichotomy many critics often adopt does not only represent a "gender polarity" but also a "gender hierarchy".
Critical approaches to ''Antony and Cleopatra'' from the beginning of the 20th century mostly adopt a reading that places Rome as higher in the hierarchy than Egypt. Early critics like Georg Brandes presented Egypt as a lesser nation because of its lack of rigidity and structure and presented Cleopatra, negatively, as "the woman of women, quintessentiated Eve." Egypt and Cleopatra are both represented by Brandes as uncontrollable because of their connection with the Nile River and Cleopatra's "infinite variety" (2.2.236).
In more recent years, critics have taken a closer look at previous readings of ''Antony and Cleopatra'' and have found several aspects overlooked. Egypt was previously characterised as the nation of the feminine attributes of lust and desire while Rome was more controlled. However, Harris points out that Caesar and Antony both possess an uncontrollable desire for Egypt and Cleopatra: Caesar's is political while Antony's is personal. Harris further implies that Romans have an uncontrollable lust and desire for "what they do not or cannot have."
For example, Antony only desires his wife Fulvia after she is dead:
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
What our contempt doth often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone:
The hand could pluck her back that shov'd her on.
(1.2.119–124)
In this way, Harris is suggesting that Rome is no higher on any "gender hierarchy" than Egypt.
L. T. Fitz outwardly claims that early criticism of ''Antony and Cleopatra'' is "colored by the sexist assumptions the critics have brought with them to their reading."
Fitz argues that previous criticisms place a heavy emphasis on Cleopatra's "wicked and manipulative" ways, which are further emphasised by her association with Egypt and her contrast to the "chaste and submissive" Roman Octavia.
Finally, Fitz emphasises the tendency of early critics to assert that Antony is the sole protagonist of the play. This claim is apparent in Brandes‘ argument: "when
ntonyperishes, a prey to the voluptuousness of the East, it seems as though Roman greatness and the Roman Republic expires with him." Yet Fitz points out that Antony dies in Act IV while Cleopatra (and therefore Egypt) is present throughout Act V until she commits suicide at the end and "would seem to fulfill at least the formal requirements of the tragic hero."
These criticisms are only a few examples of how the critical views of Egypt's "femininity" and Rome's "masculinity" have changed over time and how the development of feminist theory has helped in widening the discussion.
Themes and motifs
Ambiguity and opposition
Relativity and ambiguity are prominent ideas in the play, and the audience is challenged to come to conclusions about the ambivalent nature of many of the characters. The relationship between Antony and Cleopatra can easily be read as one of love or lust; their passion can be construed as being wholly destructive but also showing elements of transcendence. Cleopatra might be said to kill herself out of love for Antony, or because she has lost political power.
Octavius can be seen as either a noble and good ruler, only wanting what is right for Rome, or as a cruel and ruthless politician.
A major theme running through the play is opposition. Throughout the play, oppositions between Rome and Egypt, love and lust, and masculinity and femininity are emphasised, subverted, and commented on. One of Shakespeare's most famous speeches, drawn almost verbatim from
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
's translation of Plutarch's ''Lives'', Enobarbus' description of Cleopatra on her barge, is full of opposites resolved into a single meaning, corresponding with these wider oppositions that characterise the rest of the play:
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water...
...she did lie
In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue—
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did. (Act 2, Scene 2)
Cleopatra herself sees Antony as both the
Gorgon
A Gorgon (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɡɔːrɡən/; plural: Gorgons, Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: Γοργών/Γοργώ ''Gorgṓn/Gorgṓ'') is a creature in Greek mythology. Gorgons occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature. W ...
and
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
(Act 2 Scene 5, lines 118–119).
=Theme of ambivalence
=
The play is accurately structured with paradox and ambivalence in order to convey the antitheses that make Shakespeare's work remarkable.
Ambivalence in this play is the contrasting response of one's own character. It may be perceived as opposition between word and deed but not to be confused with "duality." For example, after Antony abandons his army during the sea battle to follow Cleopatra, he expresses his remorse and pain in his famous speech:
All is lost;
This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me:
My fleet hath yielded to the foe; and yonder
They cast their caps up and carouse together
Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore! 'tis thou
Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart
Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
For when I am revenged upon my charm,
I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone. xit SCARUS XIT may refer to:
*XIT (band), a Native American rock group
* XIT, a name briefly used by the 1960s English pop group Consortium
*XIT Ranch
The XIT Ranch was a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle which operated from 1885 to 1912. Comprising over ...
O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:
Fortune and Antony part here; even here
Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd,
That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am:
O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,—
Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home;
Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,—
Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.
What, Eros, Eros! nter CLEOPATRA Ah, thou spell! Avaunt! (IV.12.2913–2938)
However, he then strangely says to Cleopatra: "All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss. Even this repays me"
(3.12.69–70). Antony's speech conveys pain and anger, but he acts in opposition to his emotions and words, all for the love of Cleopatra. Literary critic Joyce Carol Oates explains: "Antony's agony is curiously muted for someone who has achieved and lost so much." This irony gap between word and deed of the characters results in a theme of ambivalence. Moreover, due to the flow of constant changing emotions throughout the play: "the characters do not know each other, nor can we know them, any more clearly than we know ourselves". However, it is believed by critics that opposition is what makes good fiction. Another example of ambivalence in ''Antony and Cleopatra'' is in the opening act of the play when Cleopatra asks Anthony: "Tell me how much you love."
Tzachi Zamir points out: "The persistence of doubt is in perpetual tension with the opposing need for certainty" and he refers to the persistence of doubt that derives from the contradiction of word and deed in the characters.
Betrayal
Betrayal is a recurring theme throughout the play. At one time or another, almost every character betrays their country, ethics, or a companion. However, certain characters waver between betrayal and loyalty. This struggle is most apparent among the actions of Cleopatra, Enobarbus, and most importantly Antony. Antony mends ties with his Roman roots and alliance with Caesar by entering into a marriage with Octavia, however he returns to Cleopatra.
Diana Kleiner
Diana Elizabeth Edelman Kleiner (born September 18, 1947 in New York City) is an American art historian and educator. A scholar of Ancient Roman art and architecture, Kleiner is the Dunham Professor of the History of Art Emeritus at Yale Universi ...
points out "Anthony's perceived betrayal of Rome was greeted with public calls for war with Egypt". Although he vows to remain loyal in his marriage, his impulses and unfaithfulness with his Roman roots is what ultimately leads to war. It is twice Cleopatra abandons Antony during battle and whether out of fear or political motives, she deceived Antony. When Thidias, Caesar's messenger, tells Cleopatra Caesar will show her mercy if she will relinquish Antony, she is quick to respond:
"Most kind messenger,
Say to great Caesar this in deputation:
I kiss his conqu'ring hand. Tell him I am prompt
To lay my crown at 's feet, and there to kneel." (III.13.75–79)
Shakespeare critic Sara Deats says Cleopatra's betrayal fell "on the successful fencing with Octavius that leaves her to be "noble to
erself. However, she quickly reconciles with Antony, reaffirming her loyalty towards him and never truly submitting to Caesar.
Enobarbus, Antony's most devoted friend, betrays Antony when he deserts him in favour for Caesar. He exclaims, "I fight against thee! / No: I will go seek some ditch wherein to die"
(IV. 6. 38–39). Although he abandoned Antony, critic Kent Cartwright claims Enobarbus' death "uncovers his greater love" for him considering it was caused by the guilt of what he had done to his friend thus adding to the confusion of the characters' loyalty and betrayal that previous critics have also discovered. Even though loyalty is central to secure alliances, Shakespeare is making a point with the theme of betrayal by exposing how people in power cannot be trusted, no matter how honest their word may seem. The characters' loyalty and validity of promises are constantly called into question. The perpetual swaying between alliances strengthens the ambiguity and uncertainty amid the characters' loyalty and disloyalty.
Power dynamics
![M Antonius](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/M_Antonius.jpg)
As a play concerning the relationship between two empires, the presence of a power dynamic is apparent and becomes a recurring theme. Antony and Cleopatra battle over this dynamic as heads of state, yet the theme of power also resonates in their romantic relationship. The Roman ideal of power lies in a political nature taking a base in economical control.
As an imperialist power, Rome takes its power in the ability to change the world.
As a Roman man, Antony is expected to fulfill certain qualities pertaining to his Roman masculine power, especially in the war arena and in his duty as a soldier:
Those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glowed like plated mars, now bend, now turn
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front. His captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of greatness hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all tempers,
And is becomes the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy's lust.
Cleopatra's character is slightly unpindown-able, as her character identity retains a certain aspect of mystery. She embodies the mystical, exotic, and dangerous nature of Egypt as the "serpent of old Nile".
Critic Lisa Starks says that "Cleopatra
omes
The branches of science known informally as omics are various disciplines in biology whose names end in the suffix ''-omics'', such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, phenomics and transcriptomics. Omics aims at the collective ...
to signify the double-image of the "temptress/goddess".
She is continually described in an unearthly nature which extends to her description as the goddess Venus.
...For her own person,
It beggared all description. She did lie
In her pavilion—cloth of gold, of tissue—
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature.
This mysteriousness attached with the supernatural not only captures the audience and Antony, but also, draws all other characters' focus. As a center of conversation when not present in the scene, Cleopatra is continually a central point, therefore demanding the control of the stage.
As an object of sexual desire, she is attached to the Roman need to conquer.
Her mix of sexual prowess with the political power is a threat to Roman politics. She retains her heavy involvement in the military aspect of her rule, especially when she asserts herself as "the president of
erkingdom will/ Appear there for a man." Where the dominating power lies is up for interpretation, yet there are several mentions of the power exchange in their relationship in the text. Antony remarks on Cleopatra's power over him multiple times throughout the play, the most obvious being attached to sexual innuendo: "You did know / How much you were my conqueror, and that / My sword, made weak by my affection, would / Obey it on all cause."
Use of language in power dynamics
Manipulation and the quest for power are very prominent themes not only in the play but specifically in the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra. Both utilise language to undermine the power of the other and to heighten their own sense of power.
Cleopatra uses language to undermine Antony's assumed authority over her. Cleopatra's "'Roman' language of command works to undermine Antony's authority."
By using a Romanesque rhetoric, Cleopatra commands Antony and others in Antony's own style. In their first exchange in Act I, scene 1, Cleopatra says to Antony, "I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved." In this case Cleopatra speaks in an authoritative and affirming sense to her lover, which to Shakespeare's audience would be uncharacteristic for a female lover.
Antony's language suggests his struggle for power against Cleopatra's dominion. Antony's "obsessive language concerned with structure, organization, and maintenance for the self and empire in repeated references to 'measure,' 'property,' and 'rule' express unconscious anxieties about boundary integrity and violation." (Hooks 38)
Furthermore, Antony struggles with his infatuation with Cleopatra and this paired with Cleopatra's desire for power over him causes his eventual downfall. He states in Act I, scene 2, "These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,/Or lose myself in dotage." Antony feels restrained by "Egyptian fetters" indicating that he recognises Cleopatra's control over him. He also mentions losing himself in dotage—"himself" referring to Antony as Roman ruler and authority over people including Cleopatra.
Cleopatra also succeeds in causing Antony to speak in a more theatrical sense and therefore undermine his own true authority. In Act I, scene 1, Antony not only speaks again of his empire but constructs a theatrical image: "Let Rome and Tiber melt, and the wide arch/Of the ranged empire fall... The nobleness of life/Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair/And such a twain can do't—in which I bind/On pain of punishment the world to weet/We stand up peerless." Cleopatra immediately says, "Excellent falsehood!" in an
aside
An aside is a dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience. By convention, the audience is to realize that the character's speech is unheard by the other characters on stage. It may be addressed to the audience expressly (in charact ...
, indicating to the audience that she intends for Antony to adopt this rhetoric.
Yachnin's article focuses on Cleopatra's usurping of Antony's authority through her own and his language, while Hooks' article gives weight to Antony's attempts to assert his authority through rhetoric. Both articles indicate the lovers' awareness of each other's quests for power. Despite awareness and the political power struggle existent in the play, Antony and Cleopatra both fail to achieve their goals by the play's conclusion.
Performing gender and crossdressing
= The performance of gender
=
''Antony and Cleopatra'' is essentially a male-dominated play in which the character of Cleopatra takes significance as one of few female figures and definitely the only strong female character. As Oriana Palusci says in her article "When Boys or Women Tell Their Dreams: Cleopatra and the Boy Actor", "Cleopatra constantly occupies the centre, if not of the stage, certainly of the discourse, often charged with sexual innuendos and disparaging tirades, of the male Roman world".
We see the significance of this figure by the constant mention of her, even when she is not on stage.
What is said about Cleopatra is not always what one would normally say about a ruler; the image that is created makes the audience expect "to see on stage not a noble Sovereign, but a dark, dangerous, evil, sensual and lewd creature who has harnessed the 'captain's heart".
This dangerously beautiful woman is difficult for Shakespeare to create because all characters, male or female, were played by men. Phyllis Rackin points out that one of the most descriptive scenes of Cleopatra is spoken by Enobarbus: "in his famous set speech, Enobarbus evokes Cleopatra's arrival on the Cynus".
It is an elaborate description that could never possibly be portrayed by a young boy actor. It is in this way that "before the boy
laying Cleopatracan evoke Cleopatra's greatness, he must remind us that he cannot truly represent it".
The images of Cleopatra must be described rather than seen on stage. Rackin points out that "it is a commonplace of the older criticism that Shakespeare had to rely upon his poetry and his audience's imagination to evoke Cleopatra's greatness because he knew the boy actor could not depict it convincingly".
The constant comments of the Romans about Cleopatra often undermine her, representing the Roman thought on the foreign and particularly of Egyptians. From the perspective of the reason-driven Romans, Shakespeare's "Egyptian queen repeatedly violates the rules of decorum".
It is because of this distaste that Cleopatra "embodies political power, a power which is continuously underscored, denied, nullified by the Roman counterpart".
To many of Antony's crew, his actions appeared extravagant and over the top: "Antony's devotion is inordinate and therefore irrational".
It is no wonder, then, that she is such a subordinated queen.
And yet she is also shown as having real power in the play. When threatened to be made a fool and fully overpowered by Octavius, she takes her own life: "She is not to be silenced by the new master, she is the one who will silence herself: 'My resolution and my hands I'll trust/ None about Caesar' (IV. 15.51–52)".
From this, connections can be made between power and the performance of the female role as portrayed by Cleopatra.
= Interpretations of crossdressing within the play
=
Scholars have speculated that Shakespeare's original intention was to have Antony appear in Cleopatra's clothes and vice versa in the beginning of the play. This possible interpretation seems to perpetuate the connections being made between gender and power. Gordon P. Jones elaborates on the importance of this detail:
Such a saturnalian exchange of costumes in the opening scene would have opened up a number of important perspectives for the play's original audience. It would immediately have established the sportiveness of the lovers. It would have provided a specific theatrical context for Cleopatra's later reminiscence about another occasion on which she "put my tires and mantles on him, whilst / I wore his sword Philippan" (II.v.22–23). It would have prepared the ground for Cleopatra's subsequent insistence on appearing "for a man" (III.vii.18) to bear a charge in the war; in doing so, it would also have prepared the audience for Antony's demeaning acquiescence in her usurpation of the male role.
The evidence that such a costume change was intended includes Enobarbus' false identification of Cleopatra as Antony:
Domitius Enobarbus: Hush! here comes Antony.
Charmian: Not he; the queen.
Enobarbus could have made this error because he was used to seeing Antony in the queen's garments. It can also be speculated that Philo was referring to Antony cross-dressing in Act 1, scene 1:
Philo: Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.
In the context of cross-dressing, "not Antony" could mean "when Antony is dressed as Cleopatra."
If Shakespeare had indeed intended for Antony to crossdress, it would have drawn even more similarities between Antony and Hercules, a comparison that many scholars have noted many times before.
Hercules (who is said to be an ancestor of Antony) was forced to wear
Queen Omphale's clothing while he was her indentured servant. The Omphale myth is an exploration of gender roles in Greek society. Shakespeare might have paid homage to this myth as a way of exploring gender roles in his own.
However, it has been noted that, while women dressing as men (i.e., a boy actor acting a female character who dresses as a man) are common in Shakespeare, the reverse (i.e., a male adult actor dressing as a woman) is all but non-existent, leaving aside Antony's debated case.
= Critics' interpretations of boys portraying female characters
=
''Antony and Cleopatra'' also contains self-references to the crossdressing as it would have been performed historically on the London stage. For instance, in Act Five, Scene Two, Cleopatra exclaims, "Antony/ Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see/ Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness/ I'th' posture of a whore" (ll. 214–217). Many scholars interpret these lines as a
metatheatrical Metatheatre, and the closely related term metadrama, describes the aspects of a play that draw attention to its nature as drama or theatre, or to the circumstances of its performance. "Breaking the Fourth Wall" is an example of a metatheatrical dev ...
reference to Shakespeare's own production, and by doing so comments on his own stage. Shakespeare critics such as Tracey Sedinger interpret this as Shakespeare's critique of the London stage, which, by the perpetuation of boy actors playing the part of the woman, serves to establish the superiority of the male spectator's sexuality.
The male-male relationship, some critics have offered, between the male audience and the boy actor performing the female sexuality of the play would have been less threatening than had the part been played by a woman. It is in this manner that the London stage cultivated in its audience a chaste and obedient female subject, while positioning male sexuality as dominant. Shakespeare critics argue that the metatheatrical references in ''Antony and Cleopatra'' seem to critique this trend and the presentation of Cleopatra as a sexually empowered individual supports their argument that Shakespeare seems to be questioning the oppression of female sexuality in London society.
The crossdresser, then, is not a visible object but rather a structure "enacting the failure of a dominant
epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
in which knowledge is equated with visibility".
What is being argued here is that the
cross-dressing
Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself.
Cross-dressing has play ...
on the London stage challenges the dominant epistemology of Elizabethan society that associated sight with knowledge. The boy actors portraying female sexuality on the London stage contradicted such a simple
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
.
Critics such as Rackin interpret Shakespeare's metatheatrical references to the crossdressing on stage with less concern for societal elements and more of a focus on the dramatic ramifications. Rackin argues in her article on "Shakespeare's Boy Cleopatra" that Shakespeare manipulates the crossdressing to highlight a motif of the play—recklessness—which is discussed in the article as the recurring elements of acting without properly considering the consequences. Rackin cites the same quote, "Antony/ Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see/ Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness/ I'th' posture of a whore" to make the argument that here the audience is reminded of the very same treatment Cleopatra is receiving on Shakespeare's stage (since she is being portrayed by a boy actor) (V.ii.214–217). Shakespeare, utilizing the metatheatrical reference to his own stage, perpetuates his motif of recklessness by purposefully shattering "the audience's acceptance of the dramatic illusion".
Other critics argue that the crossdressing as it occurs in the play is less of a mere convention, and more of an embodiment of dominant power structures. Critics such as Charles Forker argue that the boy actors were a result of what "we may call androgyny".
His article argues that "women were barred from the stage for their own sexual protection" and because "patriarchally acculturated audiences presumably found it intolerable to see English women—those who would represent mothers, wives, and daughters—in sexually compromising situations".
Essentially, the crossdressing occurs as a result of the patriarchally structured society.
Empire
= Sexuality and empire
=
The textual motif of empire within ''Antony and Cleopatra'' has strong gendered and erotic undercurrents. Antony, the Roman soldier characterised by a certain effeminacy, is the main article of conquest, falling first to Cleopatra and then to Caesar (Octavius). Cleopatra's triumph over her lover is attested to by Caesar himself, who gibes that Antony "is not more manlike/ Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy/ More womanly than he" (1.4.5–7). That Cleopatra takes on the role of male aggressor in her relationship with Antony should not be surprising; after all, "a culture attempting to dominate another culture will
ftenendow itself with masculine qualities and the culture it seeks to dominate with feminine ones"
—appropriately, the queen's romantic assault is frequently imparted in a political, even militaristic fashion. Antony's subsequent loss of manhood seemingly "signifies his lost Romanness, and Act 3, Scene 10, is a virtual litany of his lost and feminised self, his "wounder chance".
Throughout the play, Antony is gradually bereaved of that Roman quality so coveted in his nostalgic interludes—by the centremost scenes, his sword (a plainly phallic image), he tells Cleopatra, has been "made weak by his affection" (3.11.67). In Act 4, Scene 14, "an un-Romaned Antony" laments, "O, thy vile lady!/ She has robb'd me of my sword", (22–23)—critic Arthur L. Little Jr. writes that here "he seems to echo closely the victim of
raptus {{wiktionary, raptus
Raptus is the Latin for "seized", from ''rapere'' "to seize". In Roman law the term covered many crimes of property, and women were considered property.
It may refer to:
*any literal seizure
**confiscation
** robbery
** kidnapp ...
, of bride theft, who has lost the sword she wishes to turn against herself. By the time Antony tries to use his sword to kill himself, it amounts to little more than a stage prop".
Antony is reduced to a political object, "the pawn in a power game between Caesar and Cleopatra".
Having failed to perform Roman masculinity and virtue, Antony's only means with which he might "write himself into Rome's imperial narrative and position himself at the birth of empire" is to cast himself in the feminine archetype of the sacrificial virgin; "once
eunderstands his failed
virtus
''Virtus'' () was a specific virtue in Ancient Rome. It carries connotations of valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, and worth, perceived as masculine strengths (from Latin ''vir'', "man"). It was thus a frequently stated virtue o ...
, his failure to be Aeneas, he then tries to emulate
Dido
Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC.
In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...
".
''Antony and Cleopatra'' can be read as a rewrite of Virgil's epic, with the sexual roles reversed and sometimes inverted. James J Greene writes on the subject: "If one of the seminally powerful myths in the cultural memory of our past is Aeneas' rejection of his African queen in order to go on and found the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
, than it is surely significant that Shakespeare's ... depicts precisely and quite deliberately the opposite course of action from that celebrated by Virgil. For Antony... turned his back for the sake of his African queen on that same Roman state established by Aeneas".
Antony even attempts to commit suicide for his love, falling short in the end. He is incapable of "occupying the... politically empowering place" of the female sacrificial victim.
The abundant imagery concerning his person—"of penetration, wounds, blood, marriage, orgasm, and shame"—informs the view of some critics that the Roman "figures Antony's body as queer, that is, as an open male body...
enot only 'bends' in devotion' but... bends over".
In reciprocal contrast, "in both Caesar and Cleopatra we see very active wills and energetic pursuit of goals".
While Caesar's empirical objective can be considered strictly political, however, Cleopatra's is explicitly erotic; she conquers carnally—indeed, "she made great Caesar lay his sword to bed;/ He plough'd her, and she cropp'd" (2.2.232–233). Her mastery is unparalleled when it comes to the seduction of certain powerful individuals, but popular criticism supports the notion that "as far as Cleopatra is concerned, the main thrust of the play's action might be described as a machine especially devised to bend her to the Roman will... and no doubt Roman order is sovereign at the end of the play. But instead of driving her down to ignominy, the Roman power forces her upward to nobility".
Caesar says of her final deed, "Bravest at the last,/ She levelled at our purposes, and, being royal,/ Took her own way" (5.2.325–327).
Arthur L. Little, in agitative fashion, suggests that the desire to overcome the queen has a corporeal connotation: "If a black—read foreign—man raping a white woman encapsulates an iconographic truth... of the dominant society's sexual, racial, national, and imperial fears, a white man raping a black woman becomes the evidentiary playing out of its self-assured and cool stranglehold over these representative foreign bodies".
Furthermore, he writes, "Rome shapes its Egyptian imperial struggle most visually around the contours of Cleopatra's sexualised and racialised black body—most explicitly her "tawny front", her "gipsy's lust", and her licentious climactic genealogy, "with Phoebus' amorous pinches black".
In a similar vein, essayist
David Quint contends that "with Cleopatra the opposition between East and West is characterised in terms of gender: the otherness of the Easterner becomes the otherness of the opposite sex".
Quint argues that Cleopatra (not Antony) fulfils Virgil's Dido archetype; "woman is subordinated as is generally the case in ''
The Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the R ...
'', excluded from power and the process of Empire-building: this exclusion is evident in the poem's fiction where
Creusa
In Greek mythology, Creusa (; grc, Κρέουσα ''Kreousa'' "princess") may refer to the following figures:
* Creusa, a naiad daughter of Gaia.
* Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, King of Athens and his wife, Praxithea.
* Creusa, also known by t ...
disappears and Dido is abandoned... woman's place or displacement is therefore in the East, and epic features a series of oriental heroines whose seductions are potentially more perilous than Eastern arms",
i.e., Cleopatra.
= Politics of empire
=
''Antony and Cleopatra'' deals ambiguously with the politics of imperialism and colonization. Critics have long been invested in untangling the web of political implications that characterise the play. Interpretations of the work often rely on an understanding of Egypt and Rome as they respectively signify Elizabethan ideals of East and West, contributing to a long-standing conversation about the play's representation of the relationship between imperializing western countries and colonised eastern cultures.
Despite Octavius Caesar's concluding victory and the absorption of Egypt into Rome, ''Antony and Cleopatra'' resists clear-cut alignment with Western values. Indeed, Cleopatra's suicide has been interpreted as suggesting an indomitable quality in Egypt, and reaffirming Eastern culture as a timeless contender to the West.
However, particularly in earlier criticism, the narrative trajectory of Rome's triumph and Cleopatra's perceived weakness as a ruler have allowed readings that privilege Shakespeare's representation of a Roman worldview. Octavius Caesar is seen as Shakespeare's portrayal of an ideal governor, though perhaps an unfavourable friend or lover, and Rome is emblematic of reason and political excellence.
According to this reading, Egypt is viewed as destructive and vulgar; the critic Paul Lawrence Rose writes: "Shakespeare clearly envisages Egypt as a political hell for the subject, where natural rights count for nothing."
Through the lens of such a reading, the ascendancy of Rome over Egypt does not speak to the practice of empire-building as much as it suggests the inevitable advantage of reason over sensuality.
More contemporary scholarship on the play, however, has typically recognised the allure of Egypt for ''Antony and Cleopatra''s audiences. Egypt's magnetism and seeming cultural primacy over Rome have been explained by efforts to contextualise the political implications of the play within its period of production. The various protagonists' ruling styles have been identified with rulers contemporary to Shakespeare. For example, there appears to be continuity between the character of Cleopatra and the historical figure of
Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
,
and the unfavourable light cast on Caesar has been explained as deriving from the claims of various 16th-century historians.
The more recent influence of
New Historicism and
post-colonial
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...
studies have yielded readings of Shakespeare that typify the play as subversive, or challenging the status quo of Western imperialism. The critic Abigail Scherer's claim that "Shakespeare's Egypt is a holiday world"
recalls the criticisms of Egypt put forth by earlier scholarship and disputes them. Scherer and critics who recognise the wide appeal of Egypt have connected the spectacle and glory of Cleopatra's greatness with the spectacle and glory of the theatre itself. Plays, as breeding grounds of idleness, were subject to attack by all levels of authority in the 1600s; the play's celebration of pleasure and idleness in a subjugated Egypt makes it plausible to draw parallels between Egypt and the heavily censored theatre culture in England. In the context of England's political atmosphere, Shakespeare's representation of Egypt, as the greater source of poetry and imagination, resists support for 16th century colonial practices.
Importantly,
King James' sanction of the founding of
Jamestown occurred within months of ''Antony and Cleopatra''s debut on stage. England during the Renaissance found itself in an analogous position to the early Roman Republic. Shakespeare's audience may have made the connection between England's westward expansion and ''Antony and Cleopatra''s convoluted picture of Roman imperialism. In support of the reading of Shakespeare's play as subversive, it has also been argued that 16th century audiences would have interpreted ''Antony and Cleopatra''s depiction of different models of government as exposing inherent weaknesses in an absolutist, imperial, and by extension monarchical, political state.
= Empire and intertextuality
=
One of the ways to read the imperialist themes of the play is through a historical, political context with an eye for intertextuality. Many scholars suggest that Shakespeare possessed an extensive knowledge of the story of Antony and Cleopatra through the historian Plutarch, and used Plutarch's account as a blueprint for his own play. A closer look at this intertextual link reveals that Shakespeare used, for instance, Plutarch's assertion that Antony claimed a genealogy that led back to Hercules, and constructed a parallel to Cleopatra by often associating her with
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...
in his play.
The implication of this historical mutability is that Shakespeare is transposing non-Romans upon his Roman characters, and thus his play assumes a political agenda rather than merely committing itself to a historical recreation. Shakespeare deviates from a strictly obedient observation of Plutarch, though, by complicating a simple dominant/dominated dichotomy with formal choices. For instance, the quick exchange of dialogue might suggest a more dynamic political conflict. Furthermore, certain characteristics of the characters, like Antony whose "legs bestrid the ocean" (5.2.82) point to constant change and mutability.
Plutarch, on the other hand, was given to "tendencies to stereotype, to polarise, and to exaggerate that are inherent in the propaganda surrounding his subjects."
Furthermore, because of the unlikelihood that Shakespeare would have had direct access to the Greek text of Plutarch's ''
Parallel Lives
Plutarch's ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', commonly called ''Parallel Lives'' or ''Plutarch's Lives'', is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably writt ...
'' and probably read it through a French translation from a Latin translation, his play constructs Romans with an anachronistic Christian sensibility that might have been influenced by
St. Augustine's ''
Confessions'' among others. As Miles writes, the ancient world would not have been aware of interiority and the contingence of salvation upon conscience until Augustine.
For the Christian world, salvation relied on and belonged to the individual, while the Roman world viewed salvation as political. So, Shakespeare's characters in ''Antony and Cleopatra'', particularly Cleopatra in her belief that her own suicide is an exercise of agency, exhibit a Christian understanding of
salvation
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...
.
Another example of deviance from the source material is how Shakespeare characterises the rule of Antony and Cleopatra. While Plutarch singles out the "order of exclusive society" that the lovers surrounded themselves with—a society with a specifically defined and clear understanding of the hierarchies of power as determined by birth and status—Shakespeare's play seems more preoccupied with the power dynamics of pleasure as a main theme throughout the play.
Once pleasure has become a dynamic of power, then it permeates society and politics. Pleasure serves as a differentiating factor between Cleopatra and Antony, between Egypt and Rome, and can be read as the fatal flaw of the heroes if ''Antony and Cleopatra'' is a tragedy. For Shakespeare's ''Antony and Cleopatra'', the exclusivity and superiority supplied by pleasure created the disconnect between the ruler and the subjects. Critics suggest that Shakespeare did similar work with these sources in ''
Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
'', ''
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
'', and ''
Coriolanus
''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same ye ...
''.
Fortune and chance: politics and nature
![Cleopatra holds the dead Antony](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Cleopatra_holds_the_dead_Antony.jpg)
The concept of luck, or Fortune, is frequently referenced throughout ''Antony and Cleopatra'', portrayed as an elaborate "game" that the characters participate in. An element of Fate lies within the play's concept of Chance, as the subject of Fortune/Chance's favour at any particular moment becomes the most successful character. Shakespeare represents Fortune through elemental and astronomical imagery that recalls the characters' awareness of the "unreliability of the natural world".
[Hallet] This calls into question the extent to which the characters' actions influence the resulting consequences, and whether the characters are subject to the preferences of Fortune or Chance. Antony eventually realises that he, like other characters, is merely "Fortune's knave", a mere card in the game of Chance rather than a player.
[Lloyd] This realization suggests that Antony realises that he is powerless in relation to the forces of Chance, or Fortune. The manner in which the characters deal with their luck is of great importance, therefore, as they may destroy their chances of luck by taking advantage of their fortune to excessive lengths without censoring their actions, as Antony did.
[Williamson] Scholar Marilyn Williamson notes that the characters may spoil their Fortune by, "riding too high" on it, as Antony did by ignoring his duties in Rome and spending time in Egypt with Cleopatra. While Fortune does play a large role in the characters' lives, they do have ability to exercise free will, however; as Fortune is not as restrictive as Fate. Antony's actions suggest this, as he is able to use his free will to take advantage of his luck by choosing his own actions. Like the natural imagery used to describe Fortune, scholar Michael Lloyd characterises it as an element itself, which causes natural occasional upheaval. This implies that fortune is a force of nature that is greater than mankind, and cannot be manipulated. The 'game of chance' that Fortune puts into play can be related to that of politics, expressing the fact that the characters must play their luck in both fortune and politics to identify a victor.
The play culminates, however, in Antony's realization that he is merely a card, not a player in this game.
The motif of "card playing" has a political undertone, as it relates to the nature of political dealings.
[Thomas] Caesar and Antony take action against each other as if playing a card game; playing by the rules of Chance,
which sways in its preference from time to time. Although Caesar and Antony may play political cards with each other, their successes rely somewhat on Chance, which hints at a certain limit to the control they have over political affairs. Furthermore, the constant references to astronomical bodies and "sublunar" imagery
connote a Fate-like quality to the character of Fortune, implying a lack of control on behalf of the characters. Although the characters do exercise free will to a certain extent, their success in regard to their actions ultimately depends on the luck that Fortune bestows upon them. The movement of the "moon" and the "tides" is frequently mentioned throughout the play, such as when Cleopatra states that, upon Antony's death, there is nothing of importance left "beneath the moon." The elemental and astronomical "sublunar"
imagery frequently referred to throughout the play is thus intertwined with the political manipulation that each character incites, yet the resulting winner of the political "game" relies in part on Chance, which has a supreme quality that the characters cannot maintain control over, and therefore must submit to.
Adaptations and cultural references
Selected stage productions
* 1931,
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Briti ...
as Antony and
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He wo ...
as Enobarbus at
The Old Vic
The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, nonprofit organization, not-for-profit producing house, producing theatre in Waterloo, London, Waterloo, London, England. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Th ...
.
* 1947,
Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell (February 16, 1893June 9, 1974) was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born in Berlin to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.
Dubbed "The First Lady of the Theatre" by critic A ...
won a
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
for her
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
performance of Cleopatra opposite the Antony of
Godfrey Tearle
Sir Godfrey Seymour Tearle (12 October 1884 – 9 June 1953) was a British actor who portrayed the quintessential British gentleman on stage and in both British and US films.
Biography
Born in New York City and brought up in Britain, he was t ...
. It ran for 126 performances, the longest run of the play in Broadway history.
* 1951,
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the Theatre of the U ...
as Antony and
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh ( ; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gon ...
as Cleopatra in a production that played in repertory with
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
's ''
Caesar and Cleopatra'' at the
St James's Theatre
The St James's Theatre was in King Street, St James's, London. It opened in 1835 and was demolished in 1957. The theatre was conceived by and built for a popular singer, John Braham; it lost money and after three seasons he retired. A succ ...
and later on Broadway.
* 1953,
Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Mourning Becomes Elect ...
played Antony and
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was deter ...
played Cleopatra at the
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) (originally called the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre) is a grade II* listed 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the English playwright and poet William Shakespea ...
.
* 1972,
Janet Suzman
Dame Janet Suzman, (born 9 February 1939) is a South African-born British actress who enjoyed a successful early career in the Royal Shakespeare Company, later replaying many Shakespearean roles, among others, on TV. In her first film, ''Nicho ...
and
Richard Johnson Richard or Dick Johnson may refer to:
Academics
* Dick Johnson (academic) (1929–2019), Australian academic
* Richard C. Johnson (1930–2003), professor of electrical engineering
* Richard A. Johnson, artist and professor at the University of ...
, with
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actor ...
as Enobarbus in
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn (born 14 January 1940) is a British theatre director. He has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed dramas f ...
's production for the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
* 1978,
Alan Howard Alan Howard may refer to:
* Alan Howard (actor) (1937–2015), English actor
* Alan Howard (cricketer) (1909–1993), English cricketer
* Alan Howard (engineer) (1905–1966), American engineer
* Alan Howard (hedge fund manager) (born 1963), hedge f ...
and
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson (born 9 May 1936) is an English actress and former Member of Parliament (MP). She has won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice: for her role as Gudrun Brangwen in the romantic drama ''Women in Love'' (1970); and again for ...
in
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shak ...
's production for the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
* 1981,
Timothy Dalton
Timothy Leonard Dalton Leggett (; born 21 March 1946) is a British actor. Beginning his career on stage, he made his film debut as Philip II of France in the 1968 historical drama ''The Lion in Winter''. He gained international prominence as ...
played Antony and
Carmen du Sautoy
Carmen Du Sautoy (born 26 February 1950) is a British stage, television and film actor.
Early life
Du Sautoy was born in London. She has played a wide variety of leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre, in Lon ...
played Cleopatra at the
Mermaid Theatre
The Mermaid Theatre was a theatre encompassing the site of Puddle Dock and Curriers' Alley at Blackfriars in the City of London, and the first built in the City since the time of Shakespeare. It was, importantly, also one of the first new thea ...
.
* 1982,
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon (; born 19 October 1940) is an Irish-English actor. Regarded as one of Ireland and Britain's most distinguished actors, he is known for his work on stage and screen. Gambon started his acting career with Laurence Olivi ...
played Antony and
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. The recipient of numerous accolades, she is the only performer to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting in both the United States and the United Kingdom. ...
played Cleopatra for the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
at
The Other Place, and later at
The Pit at
The Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibi ...
, in a production directed by
Adrian Noble
Adrian Keith Noble (born 19 July 1950) is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.
Education and career
Noble was born in Chichester, Sussex, England. After l ...
.
* 1986, Timothy Dalton and
Vanessa Redgrave
Dame Vanessa Redgrave (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress and activist. Throughout her career spanning over seven decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Television Award, two ...
in the title roles at
Theatr Clwyd
Theatr Clwyd () is a regional arts centre and producing theatre from Mold, Flintshire, in North East Wales. It opened as Theatr Clwyd in 1976, but was known between 1998 and 2015 as Clwyd Theatr Cymru, before reverting to its original name.
His ...
and
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre on Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote ...
.
* 1987,
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor, director, and producer. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received many accolad ...
and
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Regarded as one of Britain's best actresses, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her ...
in the title roles at the
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London, commonly known as the National Theatre (NT), is one of the United Kingdom's three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House. I ...
.
* 1999,
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates (17 February 1934 – 27 December 2003) was an English actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, when he appeared in films ranging from the popular children's story '' Whistle Down the Wind'' to the " kitchen sink" dram ...
and
Frances de la Tour
Frances J. de Lautour (born 30 July 1944), better known as Frances de la Tour, is an English actress. She is known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the television sitcom ''Rising Damp'' from 1974 until 1978. She is a Tony Award winner and thr ...
in title roles,
Guy Henry as Octavius (also
David Oyelowo
David Oyetokunbo Oyelowo ( ; born 1 April 1976) is a British actor, director and producer. His accolades include a Critics' Choice Award and two NAACP Image Awards as well as nominations for two Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, ...
and Owen Oakeshott) at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
* 1999,
Paul Shelley
Paul Shelley (born Paul Matthews; 15 May 1942) is an English actor.
Shelley was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, and trained at RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art). Since then he has mainly worked in the theatre as a classical actor. ...
as Antony and
Mark Rylance
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960) is a British actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Laurenc ...
as Cleopatra in an all-male cast production at
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. The original theatre was built in ...
Theatre in London.
* 2006,
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actor ...
and
Harriet Walter
Dame Harriet Mary Walter (born 24 September 1950) is a British actress. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award as well as numerous nominations including for a Tony Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 20 ...
in the title roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
* 2010,
Kim Cattrall
Kim Victoria Cattrall (; born 21 August 1956) is a British-Canadian actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones on HBO's ''Sex and the City'' (1998–2004), for which she received five Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe A ...
and
Jeffery Kissoon
Jeffery Kissoon (born 4 September 1947) is an actor with credits in British theatre, television, film and radio. He has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company at venues such as the Royal National Theatre, under directors including Peter Br ...
in the title roles at the
Liverpool Playhouse
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actress ...
.
* 2010,
Kate Mulgrew
Katherine Kiernan Maria Mulgrew (born April 29, 1955) is an American actress and author. She is best known for her roles as Captain Kathryn Janeway on '' Star Trek: Voyager'' and Red on '' Orange Is the New Black''. She first came to attention ...
and
John Douglas Thompson
John Douglas Thompson (born 1964) is an English-American actor. He is a Tony Award nominee and the recipient of two Drama Desk Awards, two Obie Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award.
''The New York Times'' critic B ...
in a production directed by
Tina Landau
Tina Landau (born May 21, 1962) is an American playwright and theatre director. Known for her large-scale, musical, and ensemble-driven work, Landau's productions have appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally, most extensively at the ...
at Hartford Stage.
* 2010,
Kathryn Hunter
Aikaterini Hadjipateras ( el, Αικατερίνη Χατζηπατέρας; born 9 April 1957), known professionally as Kathryn Hunter, is an American-born British actress and theatre director, known for her appearances as Arabella Figg in th ...
and
Darrell D'Silva
Darrell Fitzgerald D'Silva (born 5 January 1964) is a British film and theatre actor, notable for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Early life and education
D'Silva was born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. He is of Italian, Portugue ...
in the title roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
* 2014,
Eve Best
Emily "Eve" Best (born 31 July 1971) is an English actress and director. She is known for her television roles as Dr. Eleanor O'Hara in the Showtime series ''Nurse Jackie'' (2009–13), First Lady Dolley Madison in the ''American Experience'' t ...
and
Clive Wood
Clive Wood (born 8 May 1954) is an English actor, known for his television roles in ''Press Gang'' (1989–93), ''The Bill'' (1990), '' London's Burning'' (1996–99), and as King Henry I in ''The Pillars of the Earth'' (2010). His stage roles inc ...
in the title roles at
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. The original theatre was built in ...
in London.
Phil Daniels
Philip William Daniels (born 25 October 1958) is an English actor, musician and singer, most noted for film and television roles playing Londoners, such as the lead role of Jimmy Cooper in ''Quadrophenia'', Richards in '' Scum'', Stewart in ''Th ...
as Enobarbus.
* 2017,
Josette Simon
Josette Patricia Simon is a British actress. She trained for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and played the part of Dayna Mellanby in the third and fourth series of the television sci-fi series ''Blake's 7'' fro ...
and Antony Byrne in the title roles for the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
's at the
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) (originally called the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre) is a grade II* listed 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the English playwright and poet William Shakespe ...
.
* 2018, Johnny Carr and
Catherine McClements
Catherine McClements is an Australian stage, film and television actress and television presenter. She is known for her TV roles in '' Water Rats'' and ''Tangle'', for which she won Logie Awards, and has performed in stage productions for theat ...
in the title roles for the
Bell Shakespeare
Bell Shakespeare is an Australian theatre company specialising in the works of William Shakespeare, his contemporaries and other classics. It is based in Sydney.
The Bell Shakespeare vision is to create theatre that allows audiences of all wal ...
company at
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...
.
* 2018,
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes ( ; born 22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shak ...
and
Sophie Okonedo
Sophie Okonedo (born 11 August 1968) is a British actress and narrator. The recipient of a Tony Award, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three BAFTA Television Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She began her f ...
in the title roles at the
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London, commonly known as the National Theatre (NT), is one of the United Kingdom's three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House. I ...
in London.
Films and TV
Stage adaptations
*
John Fletcher and
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger (1583 – 17 March 1640) was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including ''A New Way to Pay Old Debts'', ''The City Madam'', and '' The Roman Actor'', are noted for their satire and realism, and their politi ...
's ''
The False One
''The False One'' is a late Jacobean stage play by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, though formerly placed in the Beaumont and Fletcher canon. It was first published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.
This classical history ...
'' (''c.''1620) was influenced by Shakespeare's play.
*
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
's play ''
All for Love'' (1677) was deeply influenced by Shakespeare's treatment of the subject.
[Case, A. E., ed. ''British Dramatists from Dryden to Sheridan''. Boston: Riverside Press, 1939: 6]
Musical adaptations
*
Ethel Smyth
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (; 22 April 18588 May 1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas.
Smyth tended t ...
's ''Overture to Antony and Cleopatra'' was first performed at London's
Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace may refer to:
Places Canada
* Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick
* Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario
* Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...
on 18 October 1890.
*
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Proba ...
's
operatic version of the play was premièred in 1966.
*
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
'
operatic version of the play was premièred in 2022.
Notes
References
External links
*
*
No Fear Shakespeare: Antony and CleopatraThe play with a glossary by
SparkNotes
*
The Tragedy of Imagination: Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" oyce Carol Oates on ''Antony and Cleopatra''
*
Set and Costume Designsfor the 1946 production at Piccadily Theatre and the 1953 production at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
Motley Collection of Theatre & Costume Design
{{DEFAULTSORT:Antony And Cleopatra
1600s plays
English Renaissance plays
Love stories
Plays set in ancient Rome
Plays set in ancient Egypt
Cultural depictions of Augustus
Fictional depictions of Augustus in literature
Plays based on real people
British plays adapted into films
Fiction about suicide
Adaptations of works by Plutarch